Amusement
by Cybra
Summary: They had some unexpected downtime, so why not spend it having a little fun? *Sector V fic*


Amusement  
By Cybra

**A/N:** Sector V ficcage. Not an adventure or a romance. Just a bit of downtime.

**Disclaimer:** _Codename: Kids Next Door_ belongs to Tom Warburton.

Not a single mission sent to them. As far as Numbuh 5 was concerned, the downtime was great. It allowed them to get those chores around the tree house, like weapons' repair, that had been piling up for a while done (One had insisted) as well as get in some leisure time. It was fantastic.

Well…at first.

Now it was starting to get monotonous. Of all the times for the villains to take a vacation, it had to be in that slump of nothing good being on TV, no interesting movies that anyone wanted to watch, and no new magazines for her to leaf through. Everyone had fallen into their basic routines, and it was getting _boring._

But then she heard a new sound: _Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

"Fifteen minutes and counting," Two reported as he entered the main room, looking down at his watch and then looking back. "At this rate, you'll beat your old record."

"Just…" a grunt "another thirty seconds, and I'll pass it."

One walked into the room, moving jerkily as he did so. Then again, he had a good reason: He was trying to keep a battered soccer ball aloft using everything but his hands.

"Wow, Numbuh 1! You're really good!" Three applauded, abandoning her controller and leaving her character to Four's not-so-tender mercies.

"Yeah. How come we didn't know you could play soccer?" Five demanded.

"I knew," Numbuh 2 said, raising his hand.

"You don't count. You two've been best friends since kindergarten. Of course you'd know."

There was a brief tongue-sticking-out contest between the two. Numbuh 5 won.

"You never asked," Numbuh 1 answered, bouncing the ball back and forth between his knees as he came to a stop a few feet inside of the doorway.

Numbuh 4 scoffed. "Tha's easy stuff."

As if to challenge the Aussie, the ball bounced higher. For a moment, Five thought One was going to lose it, but instead he bounced it off the top of his skull and then caught it on the landing on his back. He balanced it there for a second before letting it roll down and kicking it back over his head with his heel where his opposite foot was ready to bounce it up and down.

"Easy, huh?" One mocked.

"You've _got_ ta show me 'ow ta do that, mate."

The pilot glanced at his watch, grinning. "It's a record. Fifteen-thirty."

"I think I'll keep going," the Brit said with a grin, balancing the ball on the outside of his left foot as he stood on his right alone before resuming bouncing it back and forth between his feet. "I wanna see how far I go before screwing up."

"How'd you get to be so good anyway?" the cool operative asked, impressed.

Since the leader was currently busy balancing the ball atop his head, Two replied for him, jerking a thumb at the boy in the red sweater, "He was on the youth soccer team up until he joined the Kids Next Door. I'm kinda surprised you didn't know."

Five blinked before narrowing her eyes at her leader. She tried to picture him in soccer cleats and the red-and-white uniform of Gallagher Elementary. She threw brown hair onto the mental picture as well since, if he hadn't expressed interest in joining, he ultimately wouldn't have gone bald.

It was an incredibly easy picture to conjure. Even replacing his sunglasses with his regular glasses hadn't made it too difficult to imagine. He probably would've been the soccer champ.

Funny how things had worked out.

"Stop making me screw up!"

She jerked back to reality to see One kick the ball up over Three's head then quickly swing his left leg around her to catch the ball. He hopped on his right foot to move out of the way, but the Japanese girl gleefully kept swinging her hands beneath the ball every time it flew into the air as if it were some sort of levitation magic trick.

Numbuh 3 giggled. "No wires!"

"I said 'cut it out'!" the Brit complained, sounding less and less like their brave and bold leader and more like the ten year-old he was beneath all those layers of KND rules and regulations along with his own ideals.

To make One's situation worse, Numbuh 4 started trying to sweep the ball out of One's control, obviously wanting to give it a shot himself. So now the leader had not one but _two_ obstacles to maneuver around.

Watching the gray-and-black ball jump this way and that while her leader moved in crazy fashion to avoid hitting his teammates and keep it from hitting the ground, Numbuh 5 did the only thing she could do:

She started laughing.

"You're not helping!" the distressed boy accused.

"Don't wanna!" she retorted. "Numbuh 5 kinda likes this show!"

This continued on for several minutes before One overcorrected while trying to trap the ball with his chest. He fell backwards, kicking the ball away in the process, and landed with a _thump_ on the ground.

Four and Three stopped their harassment to lean on each other as they laughed. Five howled and pounded the top of the couch.

Taking a moment to gasp for air, she asked, "You hurt?"

"Just my pride."

A cackling pilot caught the ball with his hands and looked at his watch. "Official time: twenty-three minutes and eighteen seconds before you screwed up."

"For the record," One began with as much dignity as he could muster, "that wasn't my fault. There was interference."

"Sure," Numbuh 2 snickered, sliding the ball beneath his armpit and reaching out a hand.

The Brit took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. "You owe me a milkshake. From the Moonlight Drive-In."

"Yeah, yeah. A deal's a deal…Mr. Clutz."

"I am not a clutz!"

As the pair of best friends playfully bickered, Numbuh 4 managed to get the soccer ball and tried juggling it like their leader, fairing decently but not doing anything spectacular. Numbuh 3 kept trying to grab the ball, obviously in an effort to start a game of Keep Away.

With a grin, Five decided to throw today's routine out the window. She got up and walked over to the pilot and the leader. "Falling like that? Really graceful." She rolled her eyes with a smirk on her lips.

"See? You're a clutz."

"I told you: I'm not a clutz!"

"Clutz , clutz, clutz!" Two sang.

"Mr. Graceful," Five chimed in.

The pair turned and ran, One taking up pursuit immediately. Three raced by them with the soccer ball in her hands and Numbuh 4 on her heels.

"Numbuh 3, give that back!"

At some point, the two separate chases devolved into the team racing about the large tree house like lunatics just for the sheer joy of it. And when they all tumbled to the ground in a heap of exhaustion, still laughing, Five hoped that even once the hectic missions resumed that _this_ lasted forever.


End file.
